Reply #11: It's the 'Junk Mail;

[greiner3]

That allows the Post Office to be able to deliver to 99% of American homes for the price of a first class stamp. All the ads, political crap, catalogs and other bulk mail that gives the Post Office nearly all its revenue. On top of this, bulk mail is pre-sorted by zip code; a carrier just takes the top piece and delivers it to the next mail box. This allows the carrier to be able to stop at every address on the route.

If I get an average of 2 pieces of 'junk mail' per day, in a month I'll get about 50 per month, 600 a year. The pricing I found was about 16 cents per letter sized piece for national commercial companies and about 20 cents for local. It's about 7 cents for national non-profits. The price jumps for 3.3 ounces and above; for commercial this is 28 cants and non-profits about 30 cents.

I would say I get 90% letter sized and 10% greater than the 3.3 oz cutoff for the higher pricing for both local and national. I figure I get 70% local of this total and 30% national.

A quick and dirty total for the cost of companies sending me 'junk mail' trying to get me to buy something is;

70% of 600=420 local
of this 90% is at the lower pricing=378 and 42 for the higher pricing
378*.2=$75.60
42*.28=$11.76

30% of 600=180 national
180*.9=162
162*.16=$25.92
18*.28=$5.04

$75.60+$11.76+$25.92+$5.04=$118.32

I live in a zip code with about 20,000 addresses.

20,000*$118.32=$2,366,400

There are about 60 carrier routes in this zip code. Figure that there are 25% more carriers than carrier routes to cover the Saturday deliveries (regular carriers would have rotating days off) and that gives each carrier in this zip code a total of;

$2,366,400\75=$31,552

This is the amount that 'junk mail' subsidizes the ability of each American to get individual mail delivered to their home address.

Say the reducto ad absurdum is applied (the argument that follows an argument to it's logical end). This means that each carrier would have to depend on personal mail deliveries. I get maybe 3-4 of these delivered a month. My 1 1/4 carriers would have to be paid off of my monthly revenue generated at the total cost of $1.76. That gives each carrier a total weekly amount of $0.33 incoming revenue.

This amount is not all going toward the carrier. I can only give a figure of say 10 hands that touch my mail. That brings the weekly revenue to $0.033. I would add another 10% for admin costs bringing in a revenue of $0.0030. Add another say 3% for buildings, the vehicle the carrier drives (I'm on a rural route) and misc. and I get a figure of $0.0029 for my weekly delivery of home delivery of 4 pieces of personal mail.

Of course the Post Office could not even afford to go this route (pun intended?). There would have to be the delivery of 'junk mail.' If there would be a price increase too high for pre-sort costs the amount of pieces of commercial mail I get would be greatly reduced. I would get most of the measly national mail I get. It would be the local merchants that would not be able to afford much of a price increase. I leave it to you to figure out the lost revenue this would bring in. I'm tired.

2,366,400\60=